(1) Field of the Invention
This application is related to Application Ser. No. 538,574 by the same inventors, filed Oct. 3, 1983 and titled "ELECTRONIC PCM DIGITAL TIME DIVISION EXCHANGE WITH A MODULATABLE CAPACITY.
The present invention relates to an electronic digital PCM time-division exchange with decentralized architecture.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Generally, a telephone exchange comprises a group of ports, such as subscriber's line equipment, network junctors, etc. These ports are connected to two signal reception and transmission busses respectively. It is then necessary to use a switching network for switching the data from the transmission bus to the reception bus at precise moments and thus permit a bidirectional conversation between two ports. When the capacity of the exchange with regards to the number of ports increases, it is necessary to increase the capacity of the switching network to the same extent. In general, the ports and the switching network are supervised and controlled by a central computer, normally constituted by a microprocessor, an associated program memory and a data memory. When the capacity of the number of ports increases, it is necessary, wherever possible, to increase the power of the central computer by adding processors and the central computer acts as a multiprocessor. However, this solution has the disadvantage of requiring, even in the case of a small exchange which can subsequently undergo a significant capacity increase, a detailed study of the software and hardware for multiprocessor operation. This system becomes more complex as the exchange capacity increases.